Writings about music from a Dublin-based composer.

Gig Review: Devin Townsend Project and For the Imperium, May 4th, The Academy

Proving that their country can master any music that involves heavy guitars, Finnish post-hardcore act For The Imperium opened the Academy last night. It was a thrillingly energetic performance, complete with climbing the stage, mounting the barrier, and great crowd interaction by the guitarist; the actual singer doesn’t seem to speak much English, despite singing in the language.

It’s a band like this that show why the label post-hardcore applies to bands as different in sound as At the Drive-In and Bring Me The Horizon (If you don’t know these bands, start knowing At the Drive-In, but BMTH can probably be safely ignored). For The Imperium combine the riffs and clean vocal passages of the metalcore end of the spectrum with the spontaneity and rhythmic energy of At the Drive-In, and impressive guitar and bass work of their own. They’re definitely worth keeping an eye on.

The main act, the Devin Townsend Project, took to the stage after a lengthy video introduction – his signature Ziltoid TV (a collection of comically bizarre videos, curated by Ziltoid the Omniscient himself) entertain the crowd during the band’s soundcheck.

When it comes to the band’s set, I have to make a small confession: I love Devin Townsend, having seen him twice before and enjoyed the hell out of his show both times, but I never remember to invest the time in his albums. This means that when I do see him, I don’t know the songs – but it doesn’t matter.

Devin Townsend is the most charming front man in metal. Every aspect of the show seems to be carefully planned – from keeping the audience entertained (and preparing them for Devin’s highly silly sense of humour) with the pre-show Ziltoid TV segment, to the videos playing in sync with the band – everything combines to present a well-polished, extremely entertaining stage show. The sound quality wasn’t quite up to his usual (exceptionally high) standards at the beginning of the show, but that got resolved within a few songs.

His stage banter shows how well he knows his audience – asking “Does anyone smell NERD in here!?”, and his general charming self-deprecating humour. He also knows how to send up the music itself – two segments where he lampoons Meshuggah and Between the Buried and Me (complete with puppet videos, of course) were not only hilarious, but the BTBAM skit managed to sound exactly like the band in question.

As for the music itself – I just find something so feelgood about Devin Townsend’s music. The songs are so full of positive emotion and affirming feelings, without ever compromising on heaviness. Every song strikes a good balance between being heavy, interesting and catchy – I don’t know of anyone else who can write such commercially appealing music that is so musically interesting.